1. Field
This disclosure relates to wireless energy transfer to batteries and apparatus to accomplish such transfer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Energy or power may be transferred wirelessly using a variety of known radiative, or far-field, and non-radiative, or near-field, techniques as detailed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/613,686 published on May 6, 2010 as US 2010/010909445 and entitled “Wireless Energy Transfer Systems,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/860,375 published on Dec. 9, 2010 as 2010/0308939 and entitled “Integrated Resonator-Shield Structures,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/222,915 published on Mar. 15, 2012 as 2012/0062345 and entitled “Low Resistance Electrical Conductor,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/283,811 published on Oct. 4, 2012 as 2012/0248981 and entitled “Multi-Resonator Wireless Energy Transfer for Lighting,” the contents of which are incorporated by reference.
Resonators and electronics may be integrated or located next to batteries enabling wireless energy transfer to the batteries allowing wireless charging of the battery packs. With the addition of resonators and control circuitry, batteries and battery packs may wirelessly capture energy from a source and recharge without having to be precisely positioned in a charger. The wireless batteries and battery packs may be wirelessly recharged inside the host device from an external wireless power source without requiring that the device be physically plugged into an external energy supply.
However, resonators placed next to, near, or in close proximity to each other may interact or affect each other's parameters, characteristics, wireless energy transfer performance, and the like. When two or more batteries enabled for wireless energy transfer are placed near one another the resonators of each battery may interact reducing or affecting each batteries' ability to receive wireless energy. In a large number of devices batteries are placed in compartments that position batteries in close proximity to one another. In such devices, without special consideration the wireless enabled batteries may not be able to receive sufficient energy due to the perturbations on the resonators from other batteries. Thus what is needed is a wirelessly enabled battery that may be positioned in close proximity to other wirelessly enabled batteries.